Before the insights of feminist criticism altered the way many writers are examined, Jane Austen and George Eliot were usually considered to be upholders of the status quo. The explosion in criticism in the last two decades, however, has reshaped and reinterpreted the canon, and has changed the way one academic teaches these two novelists. Using Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" and "Persuasion" and Eliot's "Adam Bede" and "The Mill on the Floss," she points out how British society is subtly criticized through the authorial voice. Both authors create female protagonists in precarious situations and with limited possibilities. Austen and Eliot, far from accepting the status quo, create fictional worlds which criticize the way these characters must conform in order to survive. Today's students see that the protagonists of these novels pay a very high price for preservation of integrity. The curriculum of the 1990s will probably reflect this kind of shift in perception of novelists, especially those of the 19th century. (NKA)